


The Strange and Illogical Adventures of Three Idiots

by NihilismPastry



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, after the events of Sburb
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-22
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2019-06-14 09:22:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 9,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15385698
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NihilismPastry/pseuds/NihilismPastry
Summary: Karkat wasn't sure how he got mired in this mess. He blamed Sollux for bringing his human around, and he blamed the human for being so damn...





	1. Chapter 1

It started with him screaming. The noise bounced off the blank walls of his bedroom, and his claws dug into his sleeves and tore into the fabric. The part of his mind not swirling in the grip of nightmares laughed at him for being so stupid. He’d been dealing with nightmares and flashbacks to that fiasco for how many sweeps now?

Too many.

Karkat swallowed in deep breaths of air, and forced candy red tipped claws off his arms and to the phone sitting on the pile of blankets and pillows. He tapped at the cracked screen until he found a name glowing in a bright yellow that hurt his eyes. He brought his phone up to his already alert ears, and listened to the painstaking drone of the dial tone. After a few seconds, a groggy voice answered. “Hello?”

“Sollux, you’re able to see, right?”

“... Karkat, where are you?”

He grit his fangs, but didn’t lash out at Sollux. He needed to stay calm, he needed to actually get an answer out of his friend. “Can you just answer the fucking question?”

“Oh look, I was about to say the same thing.” Karkat could hear whispering in the background before the sound of a car engine starting up “You’re at your hive, right? I’m gonna meet you there. Don’t move and keep breathing.”

_Click!_

Karkat dropped the phone, and watched it land on the dingy carpet with a loud thunk. Silence reigned supreme once more, and once more Karkat’s claws dug into his sweater. The bright red smeared over the gray fabric, but he couldn’t bring himself to care at that point and time. His gaze slid up to the ceiling, and he stared at with hard yellow and red eyes. There was dust there again, and splashes of something crusty and blue.

“Not blood.” It couldn’t be blood, why in the hell would it be blood? While Trolls had a military and way of doing things on this shared Earth, he hadn’t had to kill anyone. “Everyone’s alive.”

He repeated it like the broken and overused mantra it was. Everyone was alive, everyone was okay, and there was even some kind of peace over them like before the days of that damn game. His ears flicked back up when he heard a car park in his cramped driveway, and after a few moments, he could hear Sollux and his lisp in his living room. “KK? You didn’t move your ass did you?”

He pressed a hand against the floor and slowly dragged himself up in a standing position. His nose wrinkled when he caught the spicy scent of cinnamon and sugar mixing with honey and stale bread. “You brought someone?”

“Matesprit.”

Karkat made his way into the living room to find a tall yet lanky troll standing among the mess of DVDs cluttering the floor. Almost immediately he could smell something thick and warm coming from Sollux, and some of the tension in his body relaxed as he breathed in the calming scent. Sollux’s own scrawny shoulders relaxed a bit, and his hand released a much smaller one that Karkat hadn’t even noticed until now. He doesn’t get much of a chance to dwell on it either as Sollux crosses the room in three steps, and grabs him by the shoulder, effectively spinning him around.

“Told you to keep your ass in one place.”

“I moved into another room!”

“What’d I say, KK?”

He practically seethed as the bedroom door was slammed shut, but there was a small part of himself that was just as thankful to see Sollux whole, alive, not blind, and his ornery self regardless…

* * *

 

The moon was high in the sky when Karkat woke up again. The scent of stale bread and honey invaded his nose, but there was also the warm scent of  Lusus oil and something spicy that made his mouth water. He pushed himself up, and raked a hand through his hair, narrowly avoiding his horns in the haphazard process. Red eyes flicked around the room, picking through the clutter of clothes, books, computer parts. His mounting anxiety slid to a halt when he caught sight of a mismatching pair of shoes sitting right outside the respite pile. “Last night wasn’t a dream.”

They all were still in this timeline.

They were still on the shared Earth.

He pushed himself up and stripped out of his clothes while he had the chance, and threw on some clean ones. His nose wrinkled when he caught a streak of blood on the sleeves of his shirt, and tossed it in the trash bin. As he passed by a crooked mirror on the wall, a pair of bright red eyes peered back at him, reminding him how pointless his cautious action was. Jis gaze shifted back to the shirt, before going to the mass amount of clutter he’d have to pick through to get to it.

“Fuck that.”

He ripped his bedroom door open, and his tongue snaked out along his black lips when a heady rich smell hit his nose. He followed the smell through the cleaned up living room and into the kitchen, but where he expected to find Sollux attempting to make something edible instead he found a human female cracking eggs into a bowl. She was small, then again all humans were compared to full grown Trolls, and looked relaxed from her stance. “Where’s Sollux?”

The human whipped around, her eyes wide and mouth open. “Jeez, you up and scared me.” She pointed to the living room with a fork. “He was on the couch last I checked. He hasn’t been asleep long.”

That wasn’t too surprising. Sollux had a thing for staying awake at all hours and sleeping at even odder hours. He watched the human pour the eggs into the pan, and then swish them around with a spatula. “Hey uh, you know you don’t have to do all this, right? Not like I have any extra money to pay you or anything.”

“I know.” She slipped the eggs out of the pan and onto the only plate that Karkat owned. “Figured you both could use a good meal is all. Believe it or not, I am capable of being nice to you.”

“You? Nice?” He scoffed and leaned against the tiled countertop. “And here I thought you were just capable of being like those pissy claw beasts your species worships so much. Really, you go purring all over that jackass in my living room, but the minute he turns his back you’re trying to claw my eyes out with your tiny hands and throw terrible insults that have little to no coherent meaning at me. How does your rusted thinkpan even come up with half the putrid shit that spews out of your protein loader?”

She stared at him for a long moment, before rolling her eyes and turning back to the eggs. “Well fuck you too, Karkat.” She shoved the plate into his hands before cracking the rest of the eggs. “I mean it’s not like I stayed up past the time I’m supposed to be asleep just to make you food or anything.”

“Do you want me to pet you and call you a good girl like that four eyed weirdo?”

“Do you want me to punch you in the mouth?”

A groan echoed through the kitchen, and Sollux slumped against the crowded countertop. “Save your black flirting for another day.”

“I don’t have black feelings towards her!”

“I still don't know what that means.” The human took the plate from him, and stabbed some of the eggs to nibble a bit. “Weird shit aside, I saw you had Titanic in there. You wanna watch that later?”

Sollux raised an eyebrow. “Hey, Busy Bee, when was the last time you slept?”

“I slept for a few hours while you were in there with Dickface,” She said, and pointedly ignored Karkat's outcry at the nickname. “And aren’t you being a hypocrite? You’ve been up two days straight.”

Sollux rolled his eyes and flicked the human’s forehead eliciting a whine from her. The bickering shifted from her and Karkat, to her and Sollux with ease. The atmosphere was light as the plate was filled with eggs and passed around to the occupants of the room. The miasma of yesterday didn’t cling to their skin, and the bitter words were sweeter than the reassurances of the day before. They’d had similar arguments before, and the insults thrown at each other were old and rehearsed. Six months of the same routine tended to do that, but Karkat couldn’t help but grab onto the sense of normalcy with both hands.

Normalcy?

Happiness?

Comfort?

He didn’t know what the feeling that came from standing in a rundown kitchen with someone he hardly knew and someone that he considered a friend was supposed to be.  Hell, maybe he was just happy that he wasn’t being tossed aside and being seen as weak cull bait right now. It was just as likely as the thousands of other answers that seemed plausible and not the least bit line blurring. But for now, Karkat would be content with it, even if that meant he had to suffer through watching Titanic with someone who wouldn't get any of the important quadrant setups that helped make the film a masterpiece, and another person who was going to mock the movie to hell and back. 

He would suffer proudly though...

He was good at that. 


	2. Adventure 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> April 13th dawns bright...

Sollux stared at the lines upon lines of code glowing on the dim screen. It was a quick patch up job for a client that wanted to remain anonymous and didn’t care too much about himself so long as he got the job done. Most of the money had been wired to his account, and the other half would be sent once the virus was sent back to his client. Not the most honest work on the planet, but that didn’t stop the quick typing of his fingers or the calculations dragged through his mind as he tried to get the last stretch completed.

**Beep**

**Beep**

**Beep**

A soft moan sounded close by, and he heard cloth shuffle and bones pop. It was quiet for a few moments longer before his matesprit started talking. “Are you gonna come to bed?”

“Gotta finish this.”

She hummed, and the room is plunged into near silence once again before cloth rustles and quiet pop music mixes with the clacking of his keyboard. Sollux slowly sank back into the rhythm of typing and calculations, and the world began falling away into the lines upon lines of letters, numbers, and symbols that would create a virus that would upload all the text messages from a phone back to the person who activated it. Nothing particularly challenging, Sollux might have even called it relaxing if he didn’t have to also design the shitty graphic for the email that would have to be sent…

He jumped as warm hands brushed against his shoulders, and the smell of cinnamon, sugar, and his own marking scent became infinitely stronger. “You gonna eat breakfast/dinner with me, or you gonna keep going on your geek spree?”

“You don’t complain when I pay my half of the rent.”

“This is true.” He felt her small hands fall from his shoulders and rake down his side, stopping just on his ribs and above his grub scars. She pressed her fingers into his t-shirt and skin lightly, and his fingers jumped against the keys as a laugh bubbled in his throat. “Look how skinny you are! Lemme feed you before I come home and find you hunched over your computer like one of those cicada husks.”

“Look, I know humans compare my species to bugs, but that step you’re describing was done way before I even met you. It’s part of our ‘child’ stage, actually.”

She shuddered, and her head fell on his shoulder. He could feel her breath wafting against his skin, and the warmth from it made his neck feel clammy. “Great, now I’ve got images of you being ripped in half and shimmying out of your own body. Good job.”

“You’re welcome, Busy Bee.”

He grinned as she sighed and leaned more of her weight on him. He could practically hear her rolling her eyes. “Whatever, starve then. Make sure you leave your weird slime and body parts out of my bed.”

“You don’t like my bulge and genetic material anymore? I’m insulted.”

His shoulders shook as he felt the warmth of her body leave him, and he devolved into a full blown laugh when he caught sight of her disgusted face as she left the room. “See, shit like this is why my mother’s convinced I’m into bestiality, Sollux. Don’t mix your sexy stuff with your nightmare fuel.”

“You started it.”

“And trust me, you ended it.”

He opened his mouth to argue, but a shrill beep and his Trollian chat client taking up his screen took over his attention once he saw the handle. He answered the gray text, and went back to typing away at his code until the chat client interrupted him again with six consecutive messages. It wasn’t anything important, little more than ‘shooting the breeze’ as humans called it. That’s what a lot of Karkat’s messages often devolved into so early in the morning during his insomnia episodes. Typically, Sollux didn’t mind easing the Troll through the long daylight hours, but today he had work to do and rent was coming up whether Sollux wanted it to or not.

“Hey, Bee.”

“Yeah?” He twisted around in time to see his matesprit stuffing a toothbrush in her mouth.

“Do you have work today?”

She shook her head, and popped the toothbrush from between her far blunter teeth. “Mrs. Calvin locked up the drug store today, something about a family emergency.”

“Well while your boss sees her mistress, mind seeing KK for a bit.”

She raised an eyebrow at that. “You want me to go see Karkat? Shouldn’t he be sleeping right now?”

“He’ll be up.” He gestured to the computer. “I’ve gotta finish this, and he doesn’t need to be alone right now.”

Her eyebrows relaxed, and she leaned against their bathroom door as she watched him. He knew she wasn’t as good a fit as he was for the job. Her and Karkat were constantly arguing and borderline black flirting, but he knew his matesprit could also be kind to others, and that’s what Karkat needed. Weakness was looked down upon in Troll society, even on this shared Earth that they lived on. A Troll with the issues Karkat had would be culled without so much as a second thought for showing so much weakness in their daily lives… Not to mention the unsightly color of his blood.

Despite the fact it was deeply buried and hidden behind layers of loud and sarcastic bullshit, large words, and grandiose speeches on stupidity that got annoying and cut into someone’s sanity after awhile…

Well, the weakness still existed.

And despite all the bullshit Karkat often pulled, and his own instincts, he didn’t want to see that idiot get culled.

“So,” she said. “You want me to babysit a grown ass man? Is there any particular reason as to why?”

Sollux gripped the back of the chair but kept his voice laid back and calm. “Keeps him from bothering me. Besides, I thought you liked watching  _Titanic_ with him last time.”

“Yeah, but I’m pretty sure he hates me.” She went back to the bathroom, and the pipes rattled in the walls as she turned on the water, her voice drifted above it all, somehow. “And I mean human hate. Not quadrant hate.”

“I doubt KK can ‘quadrant hate’ anybody.”

“Uh-huh…” The pipes stopped rattling and the water shut off. She eventually came back into the respite block with her toothbrush missing and water dripping off her nose and making blotches on her shirt. “Should I be happy? Relieved? Maybe even concerned?”

“I have no clue.”

“Damn you’re helpful.”

“I know, right?”

She rolled her eyes and went quiet for a few moments, her gaze settled on their shared bookshelf filled with so many different reference books that it would put a google search to shame. “I… The last time you went over there you woke me up and hurried over, and then you locked yourself in his room for hours. I could hear him screaming, and it wasn’t just him ranting about stupid shit.” Her gaze shifted to him. “If he needs help we should just go get it. It’s noble and all to save him when he’s like this, but friends can only do so much. Relationships don’t suddenly make things like that, feelings like that, go away.”

His grip left his knuckles white, and he had to fight down sounds his human wouldn’t understand but would likely concern her anyway. “Trolls don’t exactly do the mercy thing.”

“I know.”

“That’s a human thing.”

“I’m aware.”

“So,” he said. “you get why I’m doing this now?”

She slowly nodded, and she nibbled at her bottom lip. “I guess… I just don’t wanna mess up and end up with-”

“He’ll be fine,” Sollux said. “he’s always antsy this time of year.” His gaze shifted to the flower calendar pinned to the wall above their respite pile. April 13th had yet to be marked off despite the fact that the day had finally arrived. “You’ll be able to binge watch your cooking shows and play long ass games of monopoly again.”

She’s quiet for a long moment before shaking her head. “It’s not about inconveniencing me, but yeah, if you say so.”

“Just did.”

She rolled her eyes, and her playful smile spread on her lips once more. “You know what? Sometimes I wonder if you’re dating the wrong person. You and Karkat sure get along real nice.”

Sollux scoffed and turned back to his computer, his hands flying across the keyboard and lines of code snaking across the screen. “Hurry up and go before I kick you out.”

“Sollux and Karkat sitting in a tree~! F-U-C-K-I-N-G~!”

A warmth filled his eyes, and he could feel a buzzing above his head before he heard a yelp and the bathroom door slam shut. He pulled off his glasses and began rubbing his eyes with sore fingers. “Idiot better appreciate the shit I do for him…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really like writing mostly character pieces, apparently. It's pretty soothing, and it's allowing me to explore a bit with how I write characters. 
> 
> Know what doesn't explore? My tumblr! http://nihilismpastry.tumblr.com/


	3. Adventure 3

Karkat looked up from the book balanced on his legs, his ears alert as he listened to the quick tapping at his front door. Sollux had warned him that his matesprit, he didn’t even know her name just that stupid nickname that Sollux referred to her by, would be coming to hang out with him during the daylight hours. He had no clue why the human would be the one to do it, but Sollux wasn’t answering the chat anymore, and he didn’t have the energy to get into a phone call with him and argue about it either. It’d probably devolve into something stupid and kind of embarrassing, and then he’d have to scrub his thinkpan in an attempt to forget it all. So stewing in silence and gathering up his energy to chase the human away had been his final and best option.

**_Tap_ **

**_Tap_ **

**_Tap_ **

He slammed his book shut and tossed it further down the couch before pulling himself up.When he opened up the front door the human from a few days ago was standing on his front porch. A lollipop stick dangled out of her mouth, and she had a backpack over her shoulder.

Karkat’s lips parted into a sneer. “So, Sollux sent you here, huh? Well, why don’t you turn around, get in your four wheeled device, go back to wherever you live, and leave me the fuck alone.”

She raised an eyebrow. “He sent me because he can’t leave himself. Trust me, I’m not jumping over the moon to see your demonic face either.”

He grit his fangs at the over used insult. “Then why don’t you consider doing what I just told you to, or are you just that fucking deaf? Or maybe, and I might be going off on a limb here, but stupid simple instructions are too much for your primitive human cognitive facilities? I think it’s the last one, personally.”

“... You know you could just slam the door in my face, right?”

“...”

She shoved him aside and entered his hive. Karkat could feel the throbbing behind his eyes hurt all the more as she slipped off her pink flip flops and left them beside the door.  “So, you don’t have to talk to me, and I really don’t have to talk to you. I brought my own food, water, and entertainment. I’ll be out of your hair in three hours tops.”

“You can’t just-!”

She turned back to look at him. “Can’t what?”

Karkat stared down at her, and his hands opened and clenched. He wasn’t sure what to even say to any of this. It was all his fault this stupid shit was happening. He had been stupid enough to voice any kind of weakness, and Sollux was now punishing him for it. Because, at his core, that guy was such an asshole.

Another wave of pain pulsed behind his eyes, and he shut them and pressed his palms against his eyelids in hopes to stem some of it. He could hear the squeaking of his couch as the human sat down, and smell cinnamon, sugar, and that peculiar scent that reminded him of Sollux begin to bleed into his hive. Silence plunged into the room soon after, and he could practically feel the human’s gaze riveted to him. Did she know how weak he was for needing company during the day like this? Hell, maybe she thought he was perfect cull bait. Not like there weren’t easier ways to find his insides on his outsides, but a human gossiping about shit they didn’t understand felt like a good way for that to happen…

“Hey, are you alright?”

He dropped his hands, but recoiled when he saw how close she had gotten to him now. She stood on her tiptoes, hands on her hips, head tilted as she stared up at him. “Didn’t you just say something about how you would leave me the fuck alone?”

“You weren’t breathing.” Her eyebrows furrowed. “Were you having a panic attack?”

“What? No. Shut up!”

He pushed past her, and ignored her wobbling form as he went to his respite block and slammed the door shut. The calendar on the wall flared up and the pages whispered together, obscuring the picture of an artistic sun, before they finally settled. April could be seen in bold grey lettering, and the 13 that was scratched out in red pen drew more attention to it instead of hiding it from sight.

Today was Karkat’s Wriggling Day.

And on this day of his hatching, he was approximately….

Well, it didn’t matter how old he happened to be. For humans, it was the advancement of a ‘year’ which were far shorter than an Alternian sweep. He had thought once the shared Earth was formed that maybe he would stop having the fits of insomnia, non-existent appetite, and extra self loathing, but here it was another year and he was up to his same old shit. Hell, he even had a panic attack to add to his massive bag of shitty reactions to an equally shitty day.

Wonderful.

He ripped his gaze away from the calendar and pressed the heels of his palms against his eyes once again. “Fuck.”

**_Tap_ **

**_Tap_ **

**_Tap_ **

Karkat groaned and slid down the door. “What in the hell could you possibly want right at this exact second, human?”

“I wanted to know if you were alright.”

“You _just_ fucking asked that.” His fingers curled into his hair, and he fought the urge to tear it out and set the bloody clumps on fire. “You invade my hive, push me around, and now you have to ask inane questions over and over again like a broken music disk. You know what? You have to be exactly like the hypothetical disk, because clearly, you have some kind of fucking malfunction!”

“Karkat…”

“WHAT?!”

There was a dull thud against the door, and he could hear cloth sliding until it was nearly silent. He could hear the gentle intakes of breath, the mechanical ticking of his clock buried beneath the blankets of his respite pile, and his own heavy breathing. After awhile a soft sigh could be heard on the other side of the door. “Sollux said that Trolls don’t have mercy for each other, not really. So, I guess I sorta understand why you don’t want me around.”

He gave a dry laugh and let his head hit his knees. The slither of pain in his skull managed to override the one behind his eyes for a fraction of a second, and he was thankful for the quick distraction.“The fact I hate you isn’t enough of a deterrent? You have to use your sappy human emotions and your ‘empathy’ to try and logic up a decent reason?”

“Yup.”

“You’re real pathetic, you know that, right?” he said. “Who sits there and decides to give ‘mercy’ to someone who’d paint the hive with their guts if they ever got the opportunity? I don’t like you. To me, you’re just some weirdo that hangs around one of my friends, and consequently, I have to see your stupid face every once in a while. In fact, Sollux is an even bigger idiot for thinking that you of all people would help with anything. So yeah, you’re both fucking idiots.”

“Maybe.” Cloth shifted again. “I’m not gonna lie and say I get what you’re feeling. General emotional shit for our two species is so hard skewed that I don’t get it sometimes. However, I’m not gonna sit there and make fun of you for what you’re feeling, or tell you to go fuck off, or whatever. Not gonna force you to sit there and spill your guts to me either.” She gave a small giggle and he swore he heard a snort in it. “We can keep being utter dicks to each other, if that’s what you’re wanting. Just don’t…”

Don’t what?

Why did she sound so damn melancholy at the end?

Karkat let his hands drop, and his eyes got used to the dim sunlight streaming through the blanket he had pinned over the window. Humans were so insanely stupid he didn’t even know how he could stand talking to them sometimes. He thought he’d be used to them after the dumbasses from the game sessions, and then the people he was forced to associate with for work, but here he was, pondering the cryptic words of a ridiculous human that sounded more upset than he was.

With more effort than it was worth, he eventually pushed himself off the floor, and opened up the door. The human yelped and fell backward, but he ignored her in favor of stepping over her and going to the massive bookshelf filled with DVDs and novels. If he was going to have to put up with a human who didn’t understand anything, then the least he could be is entertained while doing it. He popped in _How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days_ , and went over to the couch to sit down.

“Hey, look.” The human raised an eyebrow as he carefully made a line on the couch with a claw tipped finger. “See this line? If even your smell crosses this line, I will kick you out of my hive and onto the sidewalk so quickly you’ll go cross-eyed. Got it?”

“That’s not how scents work, jackass.”

“And who’s problem is that?”

They devolved into squabbling, but Karkat didn’t mind as the movie played in the background. The human’s voice, the cheery and sometimes whimsical music from the movie, and his own voice helped keep the throbbing behind his eyes at bay.

When evening finally hit and the human went back home to Sollux, he found that the pain was gone altogether...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter! Hopefully the next one will be funny instead of depressing. Don't expect the arguing to go anywhere, this IS Karkat centric. So arguing is a given?
> 
> Know what isn't a given? My Tumblr! http://nihilismpastry.tumblr.com/


	4. Adventure 04

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sense of something.

Sollux rubbed at an eye as he walked to Karkat’s place. He told his matesprit he’d pick her up after a few hours, but he’d gotten sucked up in the code he was working on, and then he ended up passing out in the ablution trap. Long story short, he was expecting his human to bitch and Karkat to try and claw his eyes out. If the two were even alive… The two of them argued a lot, and occasionally it slid between black flirting and general antagonism. Then again, Karkat was antagonistic towards everyone, it just felt far more blatant towards his human. 

Pushing people away had become something of a hobby for Karkat. He would bitch, hiss, and insult someone enough that they would stop tolerating him after awhile. Karkat would be hurt for all of a second, before going back to his damn near reclusive tendencies and claiming to be content with how life had turned out. No one ever believed him, but then Sollux was the only one left...

He dropped his hand and let his glasses settle back in place on his nose, effectively shielding the late afternoon sun from his sensitive eyes. He didn’t know how humans could stand being outside the house during the daylight hours. The sun wasn’t as bad as the one back on Alternia, but it still had the bad habit of causing a headache if he was running around anywhere before sunset. Apparently, it was the same for most psionic using Trolls, and not just another case of wonderfully shitty luck on his end. Really, it was probably a good thing that he waited this long to go rescue Karkat from himself. He wouldn't have the patience to deal with the loud mouthed Troll with the chattering in his skull along with a dull throb that even his cocktails wouldn't kill. 

Karkat was lucky today.

Sollux turned the corner and made his way up the narrow stairs of the small hive. It was one of those brick ones with god awful shutters painted in a color that made him irritated for no particular reason. His ears twitched up in alertness and he pressed his head against the warm wood of the door. There was the murmur of the TV, and he could hear someone chewing as well, but it was otherwise quiet.

Surprising.

He had thought he would come back to the two screaming at each other, or the hive on fire, or…Well, he could think of a thousand reasons for the place to be an utter mess and a half. He pulled back and knocked on the door. There was grumbling on the other side before it was ripped open by an irate Karkat. “WHAT IN THE EVER LOVING FUCK-Oh, it’s just you.”

Sollux peered over the shorter troll, and caught sight of his human curled up on the couch with a bottle of… something in her hand. Her eyes were glued to the TV, and he felt his shoulders relax upon seeing that she lacked bruises, missing limbs, or her candy colored blood wasn’t splattered everywhere. “Came to pick up BB.”

Karkat turned slightly. “Human, get your filthy body off my couch and leave. Your babysitter’s here.”

“ _Your_ babysitter.” She said as she pulled herself off the couch, and began gathering up the trash and wrappers from around the couch and floor. All of it was stuffed in a bag, and she tied it up neatly. “Did you forget why I’m here? Thought your superior alien brain knew everything.”

“Shut up and leave already before I throw you onto the streets.”

She shoved the bag onto Karkat’s chest, before standing on her tiptoes and pecking Sollux’s cheek. Leaning down somewhat he tapped his forehead against hers and took the moment to scent her. Maybe it was a bit obnoxious, but it was an instinct he couldn’t kick as much as he hated it. There was Karkat’s weird smell, something else that was soft and floral, another thing that was acidic and citrus, and something else he couldn’t name but knew it had something to do with human foods.

He pulled back from her and stuck a hand into the pockets of his pants. “You should probably get home. Pretty sure KK’s sick of you.”

“I didn’t even want her here!”

She rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue with either of them as she went to the beat up jalopy they called a car. It wasn't until she had sped down the street that either of the Trolls bothered to look at each other again.

“So,” Sollux said. “What electronics did you fuck up today.”

“Don’t you fucking start.”

* * *

 

It became a pattern of sorts. The human began spending time with Karkat during her free time, and would switch with Sollux whenever he wasn’t busy with work or… Well, whatever it was that Sollux did. Karkat wasn't quite sure he wanted to know, and he wasn't going to go out of his way and ask anytime soon. At first, Karkat was irritated by the human’s damn near constant presence in his hive. After all, he didn’t need a human to see him in his weak state all the time. Especially not one that made it her mission to antagonize him at every turn. It was obnoxious, unnecessary, annoying, fucking patronizing, and…

Well, his thoughts were starting to go down a road he really didn’t need nor want.

He was only going to, reluctantly, admit that he actually needed the company and had to stop being a recluse all the time. In fact, in an effort to get Sollux and his matesprit to back the hell off, he had even taken the time to go out for something outside his shitty job and getting sustenance supplies. Granted it was in the middle of the night, only a few blocks from his house, and he had a timer going…

It still counted.

He pushed open the door of the bar and the smell of stale beer, cheap whiskey, and even cheaper cigars filled his senses. His ears were pressed against his skull as he made his way across the wooden floor, eyes darting left and right as he took in the sight of humans of varying ages taking up space in the crowded bar. A few looked up from their stick and ball game, others stopped pressing their faces together, and more than one took defensive positions.

This didn’t surprise him at all. Humans and Trolls didn’t exactly get along, no matter what Feferi did to try and broker peace between the two races. Humans were an untrusting bunch, and Trolls were…

Batshit insane was an understatement. 

He sat at one of the few open spaces at the bar, and unsurprisingly the human on his left stood up and went over to a gaggle of humans throwing darts at a board. In their wake, they managed to leave behind a putrid scent that irritated his senses and made him want to sneeze. Why did human insist on wearing that smelly crap all the damn time? Didn’t they know half of them had pretty decent scents that came from their squishy bodies already? Take Sollux’s human for instance. He knew her scent by now, and he never understood why she insisted on clouding it up with those stupid creams and shit. It pissed him off more than the drivel she spewed out of her protein loader. Were humans just ashamed of their natural scents by default?

He groaned and dug his claws into his scalp. “Am I seriously wasting my time thinking about something so fucking pointless and juvenile?”

The clack of a glass against wood so close to his head pulled his mind out of the proverbial abyss, and Karkat was dismayed to find a human staring down at him. Their blue eyes were narrowed and they smelled like gunpowder and stale beer. “Hey, Demon Eyes! You gonna buy somethin’ or you here for Lucky Billie.”

Karkat ignored the over used insult. He had learned that humans liked commenting on the obvious shit that was different to them instead of the obvious mistakes or stupidity that oozed from the other person.  It was pathetic, really. 

He raised an eyebrow at the question. “Who the fuck is Lucky Billie?”

The bartender pointed to a human that was sitting on a table. The dress they wore had climbed up their thighs, and really it showed off way more than Karkat was willing to even acknowledged existed at that point and time. Without a word, he pushed himself up and made his way out of the bar and into the crisp early fall air. The crickets chirped from the bushes that had forced themselves up through the concrete of the sidewalk, the occasional car zoomed past on the road, and he could hear chatter and laughter waft outside from the open bar window.

Karkat stared at the night sky with a blank expression. His hands firmly shoved in his pockets, and resignation radiating from his entire being as he watched the stars laugh at him from above. “I need to stay away from intoxicated humans.”

Yes, of course, that's what it was. It had nothing to do with the fact he had seen a human that had a similar face and build to the objection of his acute fascination. That they were in a sexual position that Karkat hadn’t thought about concerning his fascination person. That he now wondered if Sollux was still a creepy bastard and filmed his sexual exploits and saved them in a file that was so easily hackable it was ludicrous. All he needed was a single excuse and access to the computer...

Wow, he was a sick fuck.

Did this even surprise him?

No, it didn’t. And that was why he made his way back to his house and looked up a pathetic amount of human on Troll porn, because maybe fucking himself into oblivion would get the poison out of his think pan, and in a thick puddle all over his resting pile. Better to lay in his mess than have it squirming inside him and cluttering his thoughts…

Who was he even trying to kid, he just wanted a hate fuck. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think that Trolls would have heightened senses to a certain degree. Some might have better senses than others though. Anyway, this chapter was a bit spazztic, but that just might have been the point. Maybe. 
> 
> Know what isn't a spazz? My Tumblr~! http://nihilismpastry.tumblr.com/


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sollux and Karkat might have realized something.

Sollux and his matesprit lived in a pretty decent home. Two bedrooms, one bath, and a good sized living room and kitchen to boot. The troll had worked hard getting his registration papers in order so he could stop living in the slums and move into a place that wasn’t infested with Earth’s worst insects and molds. He’d never thought of himself the type of person that needed an obnoxious amount of material possessions to feel good about himself, but he had to admit that he refused to live like a fucking animal while on this little dirt ball of a planet. 

So it was months of research, pretending the many laws regarding psionics didn’t piss him off, and saving up money that finally allowed him to move him and his matesprit into the half decent place they lived at now. Sure the walls were thin, and you could smell when the neighbors took a shit, but at least there weren’t six people to a room anymore.

Which meant he could fuck his matesprit whenever he damn well pleased. 

He slowly extracted his claws from the wall, this was the third time this week, and pulled his teeth out of the bleeding marks on her shoulder. In turn she was kind enough to unhook her ankles from around his waist, and bring her own bloodied hands from his back. There would be marks, but he would heal easily enough over the course of the next few days. Fuck, he couldn’t wait for the sopor law to hurry up and pass. 

“I’m going to be late, dork.” She kissed his shoulder despite the yellow that oozed there. “What am I gonna tell Lily? She’s gonna be pretty upset that we didn’t get a chance to go ahead and paint her cafe.”

His fork tongue slithered out of his mouth, and caressed her jugular. “Call her and tell her I had to paint you.”

“Yeah, no.” She dragged her phone out from under his pants, as he slowly lowered himself down and hid in her tits. He could hear the steady tap, tap, tap of her phone as she pressed the digital buttons. “You’re lucky she’s so sweet, Sollux. Anyone else would call you an asshole and tell me to leave you.”

“Too late. Your other friends do that.”

“This is true.” 

He gave a light purr as her fingers played in his dark hair. She was always careful not to mess with his horns or horn anchors when he was still knotted up inside of her. A troll would have easily done so, and then left him quivering and overloading on his heightened emotions and thinkpan chemicals. A weakness for his kind, and one that was easily exploitable thanks to how high emotions ran with sex when it came to trolls. Probably the reason why most psionic users avoided casual sex. 

He heard her give a soft sigh, and there was a click before he could hear the phone ring once, twice, and on the third ring he could hear a soft feminine voice on the other line. “Hello?”

“Hey, Lily! Are you already at the cafe? I’m sorry for being late. Sollux-”

“Um, wait… Do you know what time it is?” 

“No?”

“Hun, it’s only six AM. I haven’t even given Bandit his food.” Sollux’s ears twitched when he heard cloth shifting over the speaker. “You just relax with your boyfriend, and don’t worry about this favor so much. You’ve helped me enough as it is, really.”

“Yeah, but I’m super excited to see that shade of blue get up on the walls. There’s-”

He slowly tuned his matesprit and her friend out as he fell in and out of sleep. Every so often high pitched feedback would come from the phone and wake him up for a second or more, but he would slowly drift again like it never happened in the first place. It wasn’t until he felt both of his bulges slip back inside of his nook that he woke up for any substantial amount of time. His matesprit hadn’t moved from her spot, but she appeared to be dozing now. 

He pushed himself up without much difficulty, and made his way to the bathroom. This place wasn’t made for trolls, unlike the slums. While the slums were quick to mold and hide rat nests, he had to admit it had been pretty great not to hunch over and contort his spine like some kind of pretzel just to get the cleaning solution off his body. But that was what he had to do to keep the mold growths off his skin, and he wasn’t going to complain too much. 

For now. 

When he was done he dragged the towel over himself in quick and sloppy motions, before tossing his clothes on. He had hardly stepped back into the bedroom when he felt his matesprit curl her arms around him, and press her face against his lower set of ribs. 

“Hey, I just finished with the hell trap. If you wanted another round you shoulda said something, BB.” 

She looked up at him through her eyelashes. “I can’t love on you now?”

“Not when you’re covered in my genetic material and your blood.” 

She whined, but he quickly unclamped her tiny fingers from his shirt and sent her to the shower. As he passed the respite pile he almost knocked over a camera sitting on a stack of books. “Oh yeah…”

He knelt down and stopped the recording. When it was fully saved on the device, he pressed the most recent recording and smirked. Her small hands crawled down his back, his hips pressed and ground against her own, and he could distinctly hear her call his name at that high octave that made him lick his lips. She was hot as hell, and he loved watching these recordings again and again when she wasn’t around and the porn stars all looked boring as hell. 

“Jesus, you’re not gonna even pretend to hide that?” 

He doesn’t look up from the recording when he feels her arms curl around his middle. He was fascinated with the way her tits bounced with his every thrust. “Couldn’t even if I tried.”

“Of course not.” He could feel her kiss a section of his spine. “I’m gonna go ahead and meet Lily. Was there anything you wanted me to get while I’m out?” 

“I’d say my sopor prescription, but I guess I can’t have that either.”

“Sorry babe, you’re gonna have to get it yourself.” Her fingers curled around the camera, and he felt her slide against him until she was standing in front of him. Her face was set in a serious mein as she turned the camera off. “It’ll be a holiday tomorrow. Please make sure you pick it up. I don’t want you feeling like shit.”

“Always do.”

“Worst shit then,” she said. “Like the kind of shit you’d expect Satan to turn his nose up at, and then set on fire to cleanse the earth because it was just that bad.” 

“I’ll pick it up, BB. Don’t have to mother me.” 

“I don’t have to, but I’m gonna at least try to look out for you anyway.” She stood on her toes, and he was kind enough to meet her the rest of the way for a kiss. “Prescription. Eat something.”

“BB-”

“I’m not momming. I’m being nice.”

He rolled his eyes. “Yeah right.” 

“You want me to be mean?” She slid out of his arms and set the camera on his desk. “Fine. I’m gonna send you nudes from Karkat’s house.”

His eyes narrowed. “You wouldn’t.”

She slipped her phone out as she walked out of the room, and he could hear her typing away to someone. The lower tones mixed with higher once, and he knew she was typing out Karkat’s fucking name. 

Today just got far more interesting. 

* * *

_**Knock** _

_**Knock** _

_**Knock** _

Karkat’s ears pressed against his skull, and he had to fight the building dread that scrambled around in his insides when he heard that fucking sound. One shoe was off, and the other was tossed to the side somewhere in his mess of a room. His keys were digging painfully into his ass, and he was still wearing his work clothes. Hell, the scent of overbaked sweets still clung to him like a cheap perfume that had been left in the sun. 

_**Knock** _

_**Knock** _

_**Knock** _

Annnnnd ignoring it wasn’t going to help. Of fucking course not! When did ignoring anything ever get anything done? 

Karkat kicked his shoe off, and shuffled out of his room with a grumble of something or another that the no one could probably hear. When he ripped open the door, his eyes narrowed against the blaze of the early afternoon sun, and the annoying face of Sollux’s human. 

“The hell do you want now? If you haven’t noticed the time, and I doubt you have because you’re late to everything, you could clearly see that it’s the time most trolls would be asleep. Most being me.”

She just gave a grin. “ I’m not sorry for bothering you, but I wanted to check on you before I went back home.”

“You’ve checked. I’m alive. Leave.”

“Have you eaten today?” 

His fingers tightened around the doorknob. “Maybe? Why do you care?” 

“Because food is important.” She began hopping on her heels, and he had to stop himself from staring at her chest. “Can I make you some?”

“... Fine.”

She smirked as she waltzed into his house and slipped her sandals off. As she did he could see a pale blue substance slathered onto her right shin. The color made him think back to days lazing on his couch, listening to godawful music, and saliva coating his favorite spatula.

He shook his head, and shut the door, just to find the human wasn’t in the room. He gave a soft sigh and shuffled into his kitchen, and was surprised to find it empty of human life as well. The pans were still haphazardly stacked on the top shelf, his only utensil was in the sink, and his plate was sitting on the counter were he left it that evening when he went to work. 

“Human? Where the hell did you go?” 

He went back to the living room, half expecting her to be sitting on his couch and grinning at him, but the only thing there was his jacket. His eyes narrowed, and he went down the souther hall, something he hadn’t done in forever, just to hear water running. Made sense she’d be in the-

Oh, the door was open. 

It was only an inch, but it was just enough to peek into if he really wanted to. Not that he did, of course. But the option was there, and it was a rather favorable one if he thought about it longer than ten seconds…

This _was_ what he wanted, wasn’t it? The ability to go ahead and look at the human in a sexual manner? Yeah, the goal was to crack into Sollux’s computer, but this was so much better. Less of a risk! It was also undeniably creepy, and he wasn’t going to have any dignity after this, but he was already scraping the bottom of the barrel with that anyway. 

He swallowed the cotton in his mouth, and bunched his muscles as he got closer to the door. Standing in the bathroom was the human. Her fingers played with her hair, and her phone was in her hand. A bra, underwear, and her other clothes were littered all over the dingy linoleum of his bathroom floor. 

She was completely exposed in this position. 

The slope of her shoulders, the meat of her ass, and the soft skin humans possessed were exposed to him. He dug his claws in his palms, and fought down a noise the human wouldn’t notice, but felt like he should swallow on instinct anyway. 

Then slowly, ever so slowly, on of her hands left her hair and traveled down her neck, along her jugular, and over her collar bone before stopped at her left breast. She squeezed it hard, and smiled like the cat ate the canary. 

_**Click!** _

Was…

Was she seriously taking nudes in his bathroom? 

He’d be irritated by the waste of time if he wasn’t horny right now. Knowing she made herself so vulnerable in an enemy’s hive, and doing it for the pleasure of her matesprit was a good quality. Well, it was dumb, but the loyalty was something he could appreciate as he watched her twist around and put her ass on display for the camera. 

Yes, it was the loyalty and not her ass…

Mostly. 

He swallowed another sound, before slowly backing away from the door and stumbled back to the living room. The couch creaked under him, and he was sure it could be heard from the bathroom, but he couldn’t bring himself to focus on that right now. Burned into his mind was the sight of the human and the quirk of her lips and the bold way she smiled into the camera. 

It pissed him off. 

It made him horny. 

It made him confused. 

The cocktail of emotions swirled and built in his brain. He got what he wanted, just a glimpse. A little taste of something so much greater. It was not what he expected, and yet exactly what he wanted to see. She was so beautiful, and yet he couldn’t stand the fact that she danced in his head like this. 

He tilted his head back and stared at the ceiling, letting the whir of the fan calm him back down to manageable emotions and square one. 

Why was he so interested in this human?

Yes, he knew that he hated her enough to want to fuck her. A quick, violent, teeth against skin and claws tearing cloth sort of fuck. He wanted to see her sobbing into the blankets of his respite pile, and hear her screaming for him to stop or for Sollux to come and save her. He wanted to smell the copper tang of her blood and the heavy saltiness of her sweat in the air. He wanted to taste her fluids mixed with his genetic material oozing out of her cunt. 

But hate of that magnitude didn’t just bluster in out of the blue. It took careful crafting, and then months upon months of honing until it was the ultimate hate. The hate that could behead any thought of friendship, love, or any other sappy feelings humans held so highly. 

So why in the hell did he hate her?

Yeah, he was annoyed she spent so much time with Sollux, but he knew that Sollux probably spent a good chunk of the time with his kismesis too. He didn’t hate them at all, and had met them on a few occasions too. No, his hatred was just directed towards the human and her damn face. 

“Okay.” He jerked his head, and found himself staring at the human. She was fully dressed now, and her phone was nowhere to be seen. “What do you wanna eat? I don’t think I’ve asked, but don’t you have a favorite food or something?” 

“What?” 

“Favorite food? Favorite thing you like to consume with your mouth?” She crossed her arms. “Don’t tell me this is another thing you’re gonna bitch about. Doing things for you is like pulling teeth, I swear.” 

The lightbulb overhead began to flutter on and off for a seconds, casting shadows through the already dim room. 

“You’re…” He licked his lips and had to remember to breathe as the human stared him down, not even affected by the strange light malfunction. “You’re such a pain in the ass! You barged into my house without me caring, so go fucking make something and stop standing here asking if I actually care about whatever you’re going to probably make subpar, as usual.” 

“And yet you eat it anyway.” 

“It makes a turd and gives me nutrients. That’. It.”

“Right, Karkat. Right.” She rolled her eyes and went into his kitchen. “Do me a favor and don’t die of starvation. The cops will think I killed you on purpose.” 

He had a witty and well timed comeback for that, but he couldn’t bring himself to say it as the reason for his hate curled around his think pan and squeezed. It consumed all thought, all feeling, even the basic functions that kept his body alive felt unimportant with his new information that he had. 

* * *

Sollux sighed when he saw the images flashing on the screen of his phone. His matesprit was a hell of a mess, and sometimes he could honestly say it was her most charming feature. Standing up for what she believed in, not letting setbacks bring her down, and getting over her own eternal hangups pushed her to do things other humans would either shy away from or shame other for doing. 

Taking lewd pictures in Karkat’s bathroom would probably garner both reactions. 

Yet there she was, naked and grinning at him with a look that usually earned her a smack on the ass or getting pinned to the nearest available surface. 

He sent the pictures to his computer, before tossing the phone into the respite pile and bringing up the image with a few clicks of his mouse. He pulled up an editing program, and began lightening some areas and cropping out others. Editing pictures wasn’t even a hobby, but a skill he had to hone if he wanted to keep making a living. He liked cleaning up his matesprit’s nudes for his own collection. He didn’t change her body shape or make her look like a magazine model. (She was honestly wasting her hot as hell body on him, a thought that haunted him at times.) However, he did make them look a bit more professional and cleaned up in the lighting area of things. 

As he began working on an area, his eyes narrowed and he paused. 

“Did…”

He double clicked and enlarged the picture. 

“She did…” He sighed and took off his glasses, as if that would make what he was seeing go away. And yet the image was still there, staring him in the face, and not going away until he cropped it out. “Karkat you fucking dumbass.” 

**Author's Note:**

> As promised I actually wrote this thing! I probably had more fun writing Karkat's ranting than I ever had any right to...
> 
> Know what doesn't rant? My Tumblr! http://nihilismpastry.tumblr.com/


End file.
